131563-lets-talk-about-population-exiles-vs-dominions
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5 Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Awww, it's happy to see you and served with love! While I agree the leveling zones are just as quiet on Exile side as Dominion, the telling tale is in the capital cities. Even taking Housing and content into consideration, there are orders of magnitude more players in Thayd more than Illium at any given time. It's a legit and really noticeable difference. My question remains though, what steps COULD be taken, realistically, to make people either want to change factions or start on Dominion to begin with? | |} ---- ---- Yes again, this is not the first time we talk about this thing and look, the problem is still there and grows up day after day. Wait for what ? We have already expected and nothing has been done. Now many dominions leave to go in the exile side, some guilds too or leave the game because not enough players for GA and DS in their roster and don't want to reroll on the exile side and lose everything. So "wait" it's not a good answer, the problem is known since months and if nothing is done it will be too late. It's like PvP & PvE servers tranfers, all people have switched to PvE servers because there was not enough people on PvP server. This is the same thing for Dominions and Exiles. Not enough people in dominion so players switch to exile. It's a real problem. Edited September 11, 2015 by Cataract | |} ---- You *do* know that in less than three weeks, the games goes Free-to-Play? That means we're going to see a HUGE population explosion on both sides. That's why she's saying to wait and see, because with any luck, we'll be able to grab enough new players to start living La Vida Dominion. | |} ---- Wouaa F2P is the answer ... ALL people will go on the dominion side and no one on the exile side ? We are saved, God bless Wildstar. | |} ---- I think we've discovered where the problem REALLY lies. | |} ---- Nah, but the population will change considerably once free to play is there. There is a chance that this will normalize population on both sides... and a chance that this won't happen. It's hard to make predictions now. Either way, with f2p coming there will be a larger influx of players on both sides, which will resolve the more immediate problem of "lack of players". Sure, there might still be less players on Exile side, but the playerbase should be healthy again for at least a while. Edited September 11, 2015 by Wylf | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Yeah, but what could you possibly do to change that? Right now Exile is more popular for a bunch of reasons, main one of them being that the "space rebel" side is probably a lot more appealing to people than the dominions "evil evillords of evil" thing. So, how do you change that? How do you make it more appealing to play on the dominions side? I don't have an answer to that, I'm afraid. Do you? Honestly asking. As Tex said, maybe provide some suggestions? | |} ---- ---- Yeah, which they did because Exile, from the start, was much better populated than Dominion. Which boils down to the Exile being more appealing to players than the Dominion is, due to both the theme and the fact that you can play catgirls there. God, how I wish Aurin had never been implemented :P | |} ---- ---- Never Aurin. They are a sickness. | |} ---- Yeah. Wrote that same thing (in a more condensed form) in another post on page one :X Playable lopp would be great. And freebots for the exiles? :p But I honestly don't think that would be the answer to the problem. Aurin appeal to a very... specific demographic, I'd say. Lopp don't appeal to said demographic. Because they're lacking... uh... secondary female reproductive organs. *cough cough* | |} ---- Well, they are fairly solely responsible for the dilemma this thread is discussing and always have been. You just CAN NOT give one race a Neko Catgirl race and not the other, and expect the player bases to be not be totally lopsided. The only hope the Dominion would have - and I am being 100% honest - is to recruit the Lopp to their cause. The Chua were *supposed* to be the answer, but let's get serious, the appeal level is nowhere near the same. Without a pure "cutesy pretty happy animal-girl" race, the Dominion will never, ever equal the Exiles in number. | |} ---- Yeah, I was just thinking about something that would be "similarly" appealing. But you're probably right, the "jiggle factor" is sorely lacking on the Dominion side (after the Boobgate fiasco) ... The sad part is Aurin cover *both* the catgirl fans *and* the fairy princess fans, thanks to their tree-hugging background. I can also see where the Drakken might have been an opposite-but-equal attempt: the gals certainly have the sex appeal, but the males look like hunchbacked idiots. Aurin dudes are cute. Drakken males are ... butt ugly. | |} ---- I agree. I think the Dominion got short changed on races. The Exiles got Aurin which are cute and the Mordesh are truly beautiful if they got over the illness that is or you get to be a badass Granock. The Doms got Draken with a terrible horn choice and posture, and Mechari which have poor facial choices or a unisex Chua. | |} ---- ---- *faceplam* How about this, all Aurin-lovers are actually super happy they exist. Including myself, without a single cutey girly race some people probably wouldn't play because they actually love their Aurin absolutely much?! xD Not a solution nor a good wish to forward to God. You just see it from the wrong side: it is the same complex of problems WoW seemed to have with its fraction in the past - Alliance was overpopulated and Horde was super ugly and nobody wanted to play there, what to do, hmm easy, give Horde a pretty new race and people will flood the other side too. WildStar is still so young, it was probably not to predict previously that the Dommys would get a too low population because the majority of want-only-cuteness-kinda-players (including myself) wouldn't find the Chua as cute as Aurin - how about somewhen in the future-plot a brand new super-cute-pretty race from elsewhere in the universe arrives on Nexus and those guys somehow end up on Dominion-side? Not that hard to implement to the plot. The solution would be actually so easy, really, not that hopeless, guys. Other games had that problem before, some didn't solve it till today, but some did. EDIT: Yeah my post came too late, someone made my point already above, whatevs so others see it my way, great. Don't hate. :angry: Edited September 11, 2015 by Taruchi | |} ---- You're taking my post a bit more seriously than it was meant, I think. Hence the ":P" smiley - wasn't completely serious. Personally I don't like the Aurin, not because of the population imbalance, but because I quite honestly find them a tad creepy, but if other people enjoy them that's completely fine. I will keep poking fun at them though ;p | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- I have tried to play a draken, chua and a mechari but I always end up deleting them and going with human. For me that's a bit of an issue because I like to step away from being human when I can in games. <_< Edited September 11, 2015 by Khandi | |} ---- Please don't. | |} ---- ---- ---- Female draken are fine, don't touch them! >.< | |} ---- Yeah I have to agree that I really dislike the anime prepubescent school girl characters in games. At least you could never confuse a female Aurin with a child. | |} ---- I wouldn't mind either way, if it was actually possible, I would've picked a Lopp as my main character. I like Aurin and Mordesh when it comes to staring countless hours at the own character. The visual appearance just needs to fit, sounds superficial but watching a Granok all day would probably depress me after a while... maybe. Amen to that. | |} ---- ---- ---- My main is a Granok female. I chose the "thickest" model, the one with huge bewbs and a big ol' booty. I wanted to see if I could get into a non-traditional MMO body style, and I have to admit ... I love her more than Lola. She is amazingly fun to watch. Her last name is "Brickhouse" ... because "she's mighty, mighty!" | |} ---- ---- Oh please no, I chose Dominion so don't have to look at that disgusting race all the time. | |} ---- Omg. I don't. :mellow: | |} ---- She's awesome :) I think you have to be pretty sassy to play a Granock :D As far as NPC's go I think Granock are the funniest. "My goods are solid, rock solid. Yeah, you know what I mean" lolz | |} ---- well, you can like it or not but the truth is that aurin is one of the most (if not the most) played race, so I think being avalible in both factions would fix the population problem. To be honest I don't like that 1 race can play both sides tho but I don't have any other idea :p | |} ---- I love Granok. Both male and female look great. My only problem with them are the available classes. Engineer sadly becomes very tedious to play after a while, Medic I already play on lots of other characters and warrior... meh, warrior. | |} ---- ---- This was my early rationale for not playing Dominion. That plus the whole religious angle. But y'know what? Now that I've leveled out of Ellevar, there isn't a lot of that, that I've seen. In the next zone, you're a freaking hero, trying to save the Dominion lowborns from a series of horrible things. The torture and churchy bits are replaced with doing good deeds to save innocent people. For what it's worth, the PTR version of the Dominion Arkship seriously downplays the church, although the first quest still involves "torturing citizens" that have made it more clear that you're doing it to root out a traitor. It's not perfect (since I kind of feel the entire experience is shallower than it was previously) - but the obvious intent to tone down the "evil empire" aspects are clear. | |} ---- The space 'evil empire' gig worked rather well in SWTOR, which I think may have lead carbine to believe it might work in Wildstar as well. I mean, the dominion is pretty much a cartoony clone of the empire, no? Problem with that is that the Empire mainly worked because it was an established thing for about fourty years at this point, with lots of people interested in it. Wildstar is simply lacking the charismatic characters to make it work, I feel. Edited September 11, 2015 by Wylf | |} ---- ---- ---- They made Chua gender neutral. They had zero hope of competing with Aurin cat GIRLS. Lol | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- I am not sure that's "technically" a bright side, Madda. :lol: | |} ---- It's a cynical bright side! | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Well if I could run over people on my Warpig and randomly punch people I walk past . . . I would love the Dominion even more. :D But I totally agree with you about the religion part and it makes me sad. | |} ---- ---- Yeah, I often wonder that same thing. Apparently, "forcing" religion on a fictitious cartoon character is the same level of heinous as "forcing" a real human to convert. Likewise, some people hate ANY kind of religion ... or they feel any religion but their own real world religion makes them uncomfortable. I don't get it, but I heard all the excuses over the years and that's what it almost always comes down to. People don't want to be religion, even in a fantasy game, unless they CHOOSE to be religious. | |} ---- Mmmh, that is definitely a problem with dominion, I admit. Not just Chua, Draken and Mechari experience a lot of clipping as well, something I noticed less with my Exile characters. | |} ---- ---- I think it's interesting too, but it's still a religion that's inextricably linked to the foundation of the Dominion's government and caste system-based society. So players will respond to it in a way that depends a great deal on the ability of the player to enjoy their character's actions without endorsing those actions as morally valid. If you think you're being asked to find your character heroic as they do something horrific, you're not going to respond at all well to it. If you know you're putting on the bad guy hat, doing things in the game that offend you IRL won't bug you nearly as much. Look at the Sith in SWTOR, they're a great example of a dark quasi-religion that offends nobody as they commit one atrocity after the next because there's no pretense throughout the game that somehow, they might really be good people under it all. They're not. You know they're not when you pick it. You're putting on the Bad Guy Robes for fun. Ildur mentioned GTA as another example of playing a game in which you gleefully take on the role of someone who is, by any moral reckoning, a complete *cupcake*. We all know he's a complete *cupcake*. When we help him succeed, we're not doing it because we believe in his morality, we're doing it because hahaha, he's such a *cupcake*! Can you even believe the game allows you to do the *cupcake* things that you can make him do?! In this game, the Dominion is deliberately not presented as the bad guys and there are many people who will cheerfully defend that morality as actually, really just fine. There's a 70 page thread on the Lore subforums of back and forthing with people who were willing to argue over the course of more than a year that the Dominion was on the same moral playing field as the Exiles. Did you enjoy playing GTA? Now ask yourself how much you'd enjoy it if you were playing alongside other people who were earnestly expressing the view that there was nothing wrong with what that guy was doing and that this was a deliberate design choice to allow you to play a perfectly valid and reasonable set of actions. After a while, you'd start wondering who these psychopaths were that you were hanging out with and sneak away. I don't wonder why the Dominion has trouble retaining players. I wonder why the game's developers are literally trying to make the difference even harder to spot from the start without changing any of the backstory that ultimately defines the morality. Minor edits to correctly credit Ildur's post for mentioning GTA. Edited September 12, 2015 by yasfan | |} ---- Chua punting World Olympics coming to Nexus in 2016! :P Carbine can't fix population imbalance, anymore than Blizzard can - and after 10 years, Blizzard is at a 60/40 split - which is the same ratio I've seen thrown around in some threads for WildStar's split. If you've paid attention though, ALL their streaming since the F2P announcement has been done, has been on Dominion Characters.. so, they're doing their part to "get the word out", and show off the Dominion. | |} ---- Mechari are particularly egregious examples since their exanite cores (their 'hairstyles' made from an unbreakeable fantasy alloy) gets butchered whenever they put a helmet on. Some drakens have the same problem (those with the 'fin-like' hairstyles). Edit to add: And the Granok also have that problem with some hairstyles (some of which are literal extensions of their flesh as far as we know) and, to a lesser extent, Mordesh too. Edited September 13, 2015 by Ildur | |} ---- Not just that, but it's really a grab-bag of what shoes will actually fit on a Mechari and not force him to be barefoot. I imagine some of this is due to the shape of their feet, which creates clipping issues unless the shoes are a certain size. Lack of foresight there... For the most part, all the Exile races are human-shaped. They all stand upright, mostly have humanoid proportions (with the Granok pushing the bounds of that some), and only one has extra features that require being worked around (ie Aurin's tails and ears). The Dominion, on the other hand, has two races which don't have humanoid proportions, both of which have larger tails and either ears or horns to be worked around. And then, for some reason, the Mechari has those additional problems we've already mentioned despite being humanoid shaped themselves. I can understand why a person might choose Exile over Dominion due to the level of polish one has compared to the other. Edited September 13, 2015 by Cantatus | |} ---- ---- Some Wildstar version of blood elves that Look Better Than You And Know It would fit with the Dominion's general tone and probably pull some people in who just want to look good but don't want to play humans. But part of the appeal of Aurin to people who play and enjoy them is the cloying sweetness of adorable nature-loving hugbunnies. That wouldn't fit into the Dominion's framework at all. Once F2P hits, the Dominion and the Exiles will each have more players overall. The imbalance will still exist, but it should reduce the pressure on the Dominion to even come up with enough players to get content to pop. Outside of that, it's on Dominion players to make sure that new Dominion players feel welcome and supported even more than new Exile players do, because new Dominion players are simply more valuable to those who care about faction balance than new Exile players. | |} ---- *cough* Luminai *cough*? | |} ---- ---- I would not want to expose the Dominion to the kind of intrafactional ego problems that would come from one race of characters that is literally considered the gods of the game. Highborn Cassians are upper-class snobs, but they're the middle managers and not the highest tiers of royalty and privilege. A non-Luminai race that looks fabulous achieves the same goal of "I'm lookin' good" without introducing "the rest of you should bow before me". | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- WTB WS version of Sylvari in GW2. Which were actually my favorite race in that game lol. | |} ---- ---- I am rolling a Radish Medic. | |} ---- ---- A Celery Stalker for me. B) | |} ---- ---- Exactly that out of thin air.. Its safe to say not all of the dominion are on nexus.. new fleets arriving.. new races. Not all areas of nexus has been explored there could be new races in the more dark regions of nexus that have yet to be discovered. Not to mention there could be nearby planets that contain life that havn't been engaged with either side yet. | |} ---- Rest assured, the number of new Aurin will dwarf anything else that appears with f2p. We're just lucky they can't be all classes, or there would be nothing else on Exile side. | |} ---- Funny...that's how I feel about playing Dominion side :P Also why does everyone suggest Exiles get Freebots as a race to play? Who the lopp wants to play a rusty old robot that's falling apart and bugs out and rampages every opportunity they get? As for a plant race that seemed delectable to Aurin...I'm not sure how far that'd go towards making the Aurin seem more "grey" or darker in any way. True, there are the living veggies, which, while adorable, disturb me greatly...but an actual humanoid race that was plant based? I don't know how that'd go. You could try to make them look less humanoid, and take away most of the "people" aspect so they might consider it more, but otherwise trying to destroy a race like that might bring back a ton of trauma for Aurin, since they would essentially be destroying Nature. How best do you fight a vegetation-based race? You set them on fire... ^Also that. The Exiles are more of less condensed all in one place (or at least the main mass of them)...so while the Dommies might have allies we've yet to meet (or even newly conquered people they bring in from who-knows-where...since they are a, well, gigantic galactic empire with what I have to assume is at least several planets worth of resources to draw from), the Exiles would have to scrounge about and try to befriend the new races they meet, or even if we did go to another planet in the future, maybe we'll meet some races there who either loathe the Dominion or welcome them/are conquered. Really, with this general set-up, and the hints I remember from past interviews/articles with Devs that mentioned a possible return to Arboria and that Nexus is probably not the final stage for this war/story, that opens up the possibility of new planets, races, cultures, etc. Plus we still haven't explored all of Nexus yet, either. Maybe the Eldan made another "test" race that looked similar to themselves in elfy aspects or something more beautiful or wondrous? | |} ---- Whenever I see that post that says, "Can we get all classes on all races now?" it translates to me as, "Aurin player here, when do we get to play all classes? Aren't Aurin great guys?" Which is why if they ever do this, just get rid of all other races on Exile side. Just do it Carbino. o/ | |} ---- I call the Carrot Warrior! Anyway, I find the comparison between the Empire and the Dominion interesting, and I think it has some merit. I mean, it makes sense in the fact that, if we are going by our moral system in modern society, the Exiles are obviously a lot closer to it. By trying to make the Dominion appeal MORE to that, all you're doing is undermining their identity as a group of people that value order over freedom, strength over kindness, etc. Why not turn up the cartoony villain on Dom side? I mean, people love villains, as evidenced by the hordes of people that play Sith in TOR. Then again, its also possible that people are ok with it in TOR because they know they don't really have to go along with it. Most of the time in TOR story choices allow you to prettymuch be a very good or very evil person on either faction. Therefore you feel a bit like your own agent, and regardless of faction you get to chart your own path and get away with it. In fact, TOR tends to encourage people to reroll and make alternate choices just to see the potential story paths. In Wildstar, we don't have that sort of breathing room. You either get goody-goody trying-really-hard-to-be-cute rebels or overbearing trying-to-be-moral-but-failing empire. | |} ---- ---- Take that back! (But really, I adore my Draken female, I find her to be pretty damn hot. In fact, the Draken female is the entire reason why I went from Exile to Dominion during closed Beta. I think I had an Aurin for a day, really.) | |} ---- That is a major difference, but it's not the major difference. And frankly, it's not a relevant difference because the same thing is true for the Rebel Alliance and the Exiles. This isn't about total game population, it's about faction imbalance. A more relevant major difference is that the Star Wars franchise makes no attempt at ambiguity about which side is better than the other. When you play a Sith and the game rewards you for committing atrocities, we all understand clearly that the views of the Sith Overlords who look on approvingly do not represent the views of the game's creators. The people running the show don't feign an inability to tell the difference between the Rebels and the Empire just to maintain an illusion of moral equivalence that doesn't really exist in the narrative. The Wildstar franchise does. It pretends that the Dominion really isn't that bad as they stamp all over the galaxy sneering at anyone who isn't worthy of their time and attempting to recruit, coerce, or destroy anybody who is. It's not that the narrative actually IS balanced, it's that the developers are increasingly trying to pretend that it is. That is a mistake that they never should have made in the first place, and they do themselves no favors by digging the hole even deeper. | |} ---- Nah. The Sith act evil, but they don't consider it evil. They consider it right. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. I'd say the design of Ilium is a huge part of why fewer people stick around on Dominion. The city feels empty and you can't see where everyone is, and even when people are playing the solo-queue game they still want to at least feel like there are other people around. That, and Aurin. Edit - and I'm just going to say, factions are a waste of time these days anyway. It just artificially locks half or more of the player base out of playing with the rest of your player base. Not very conducive to MASSIVELY multiplayer online gameplay is it? Edited September 13, 2015 by phandaal | |} ---- ---- Well, of course. But what Yasfan was saying is that the creators (that is, the writers) do not consider the Sith good. That's probably the most important difference, because it informs how the fictional world will be shaped and how it will be presented to the players/readers/viewers, who are not in-universe entities. We don't have that in Wildstar except in the publicitary material. Then it's all about moral grayness and how the Dominion's actions are presented as uplifting and morally correct even when they are clearly despicable (Hello, prison camp!) Also: So you want Sylvari to cross over from GW2?! Editted for reasons unknown! Edited September 13, 2015 by Ildur | |} ---- ---- I'm not sure that the writers think the Dominion are good, or right. Considering the game was basically advertised as the plucky browncoats vs those other assholes. Even in their most sympathetic moments the Dominion are just the ones who didn't get away after the Eldan subjugated the human race. In the publicity material for WildStar it's always been the good guys vs the bad guys. | |} ---- Which is lazy, in my opinion. While I do enjoy Star Wars, it's always been a little too black and white for my tastes. The evil guys are evil because they are evil. It lacks depth - which is understandable when you have two hours to tell a story and the focus is primarily on the heroes. For an MMO, where you have potentially hundreds of hours, I think things should be a little more nuanced and realistic. Yeah, as I see it, the problem isn't the Dominion's ambiguity, but Carbine's. They try to have it both ways at once. The Dominion are morally grey and aren't the bad guys... yet Carbine repeatedly portrays them as such in promotional materials. Just take a look at the new character creation interface on the PTR and tell me you can't immediately tell which faction is supposed to be good and which is bad. The Dominion have a deep red background with all of their races standing threateningly, arrogantly, or psychotically, while the Exiles have the bright blue background and are smiling and looking heroic. People defend the Dominion because that's the narrative that Carbine tries to sell despite Carbine constantly undermining it. It feels like two people designed the Dominion: One person who wants the Dominion to be cartoonish and endearing because of that, and one who was inspired by all the evil empires seen in sci-fi movies. You can't simultaneously be Darth Vader and Dark Helmet. So, I think we agree in terms of Carbine needing to embrace the Dominion's tone, but we differ in the direction we'd like to see them go. I'd like to see the Dominion more ambiguous and nuanced, because I find that characters are always far more interesting when they aren't unflinchingly good or firmly evil. The Dominion can still be authoritarian without being mustache-twirling cartoons. They can still have someone as reckless as Mondo Zax while having someone as noble as Toric Antevian. Obviously, I can't see Carbine just rebooting the entire Dominion storyline, but as they go forward, I'd like to see them stop emphasizing one aspect of them and balance things out some. If Carbine intends the Dominion to be a grey faction, they need to add content that reflects that more. Edited September 13, 2015 by Cantatus | |} ---- I don't think Carbine thinks the Dominion is in the moral right, either. The problem comes from what Cantatus says right above in the second half: they are portrayed as evil in suplementary material, they do a crapton of evil things in game, their backstory is evil as hell... and yet the writer's voice tries to pretend they are morally grey. While the Exile quests have quite a few 'this is an ugly thing we are doing, but we have to do it. Feel bad, player!' moments, there's no such a thing in the Dominion. | |} ---- ---- ---- That's a good point. What made the Horde in WoW work was the whole "noble savages" kind of thing they had going, with the forsaken for good measure. WoW always had a sort of balance between the factions, where neither was obviously in the right or obviously in the wrong. Most members of the Horde just want a place to live and the friction between the factions mainly stems from the fact that, well, there's already someone living there. In Wildstar the Dominion is pretty much cartoonishly evil, with Chua being cardboard-cutout evil scientists, Cassians doing the whole "arrogant elf-without-the-ears" gig and Mechari being pretty much the Terminator. Even Draken, who fit the "noble savage" thing best are more or less portrayed as people who just enjoy killing and torturing. I think this is one of the instances where Wildstars humorous portrayal of things is actually detrimental, because (at least in the first few zones, later it's apparently getting better - been a while since I was out of the first two zones ;X) it paints the whole Dominion in a very one-sided, 'more evil than evil' way. Even the Empire in SWTOR had lots of 'good guys' within its ranks and due to the (admittedly very poorly designed) morality system Bioware likes to shoehorn into any of their games you still had the option between being a good or a bad guy. As a Member of the Dominion you're the bad guy, in a pretty one dimensional way. Which might put a lot of people off from playing the faction long enough, to get into the zones where it gets better. | |} ---- ---- To some degree, I don't think that's the wrong way to go... but it needs to be about perception. Regardless of where the Dominion falls on the good/bad scale, to them the Exiles are the bad guys. It makes sense for there to be content on the Dominion-side that paints the Exiles poorly as it provides context for why they are still being fought, and I don't see a problem in that being ratcheted up. It shouldn't be about making the Exiles evil, but about allowing Dominion players to see things more from the Dominion point-of-view - which unfortunately doesn't happen too often as even the Dominion-side frequently feels like it's more from the Exile point-of-view than their own. Dominion players should be able to see the Exiles as more than a minor nuisance (as they're often portrayed), but as a serious threat that needs to be dealt with. Regardless of the Dominion's past, Dominion players should be able to feel like there is a lot to be lost if Nexus falls into the Exile's hands, and that there is a reason they need to be fought. To put it another way, the Exiles don't actually have to do anything evil to be become more evil in the eyes of the Dominion. Any act of liberation the Exiles attempt is going to be seen as an act of aggression by the Dominion. Given how authoritarian and controlling the Dominion is, there should be a lot of propaganda that makes the Exile seem deserving of everything that's being thrown at them. Oddly, though, you frequently get the feeling that even the Dominion sees themselves as the villains, which makes no sense. And honestly, I think it'd be cool to play through a zone with both factions and get a completely different perspective depending on which side you're on: The Dominion seeing the Exiles as the aggressors doing horrible things that need fierce retaliation and vice versa. Edited September 14, 2015 by Cantatus | |} ---- ---- In a world, filled with filthy scum and villains, a mecharinator was send back from the future for one goal... DAM DAM DA DA DAM... to mecharinate a single aurin... "I'm just a treehugging weebo-fantasy girl." DAM DAM DA DA DAM... who will give birth to the commander (Shepard) who will defeat the evil Empire. DAM DAM DA DAM "Give me your gear, weapon and skateboard." "HA, FAT CHANCE METAL BRAIN!" "uUUAAARRGGHHhhh!" DAM DAM DA DAM... But a lone warrior will be sent back to protect her. "Give me your tail, if you want to live!" "It will never stop, until your ears and tail are cut from you! It knows no fear, no pain, no remorse!" Starring: Chua Schwarzenegger... Every boy's wet dream... Every girl's wet dream... And some other not so important characters that you'll forget in the first ten minutes of the film. MECHARINATOR Edited September 14, 2015 by Trolec | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Not all Chua are bad, but the people who tend to create them *really* love them...like straight up *love* them, which is fine in the bedroom but don't stand in Illium talking about stuff stuck in your fur and making everyone else uncomfortable! | |} ---- Sounds like the Aurin ERP you can "accidentally" encounter in Thayd on occasion. *shudder" | |} ---- ---- Absolutely, to come back to the popular Blizzard MMO.. During WOTLK there was two-hourly world PVP event, which for a very long time favored the faction with the most active players. During the same period paid faction transfers were released. You can imagine what happened... $$$$$$$... at the start just a few players paid the fee to switch to the more populous faction to win more PVP, later some more.. then some more.. creating a bigger and bigger gap in faction balance untill the other faction was unable to win that PVP event forever. Untill Blizzard patched the event months later, allowing only equal amount of players of each faction to enter (like battlegrounds I suppose), creating a huge PVP waiting queues for the faction with the larger pop. But, damage already done => no incentive to roll faction with lowest population => state faction balance of WoW servers today (=terrible, bandaid "solution" with cross-server implementation, not tackling the root cause) | |} ---- ---- ---- *Pariah. :lol: ;) As for "feminine Chua" ... I know we've been over this before, but I am pretty sure that bushy eyebrows and droopy mustaches are the Chua equivalent of super-model level hawtness. Just go with it, Dea. Apparently, you can find Chua ERP on the EU servers if you look around for it. :huh: :blink: | |} ---- My spelling wasn't even close! What? I'm not going with that. If I can't let a moustache grow, nobody can! Lol But... Why would I go searching? I'm sure there is plenty of Mechari and Draken erp. There even a few very interesting drawings with Draken and you will not believe what people have imagined for Mechari... What with miss Mechari evil teacher... Voxine. So... Erp can be found of any time if you look. Stop looking if you don't want to find lol. | |} ---- But I'd say your last few sentences demonstrate the problem with going in the direction of nuance. They can't have someone as reckless as Mondo Zax. Mondo Zax is the ultimate cartoony villain. They can't keep Chua the way they are and get nuanced because Chua are the complete opposite of nuance. It's the whole point of why they're funny. They're adorable sociopaths. Without that contrast, they may be more nuanced, but humor that underlies their entire existence will be gone. They can't just reboot the entire storyline. The Dominion's society is based around the falsehood that the Eldan ascended to godhood and that the more Eldan you are, the closer to a god you are. The Dominion's attitude towards the rest of the universe is If you're strong, join us or die. If you're weak, we couldn't care less about you either way. That is the guiding philosophy throughout the backstory and lore. How do you make that more nuanced without rewriting the story? How do you propose that they reshape the game for moral nuance without entirely rewriting the background, redefining the races, and completely rewriting the central character elements of major NPCs? The alternative is to just say "Yeah, they're bad guys. But they look pretty damn slick while they force the rest of the galaxy to submit, don't they? Look at how clean those streets are! But not too close, because the ICI has a camera watching you right now. ;) " Which is completely in line with the spirit and tone of the entire rest of the game. This game isn't supposed to be some kind of deep srs bidness examination of the struggle between ambition and compassion. It's supposed to be a romp through Space Bunnies vs. Space Hamsters. | |} ---- That is an interesting point and I kind of hope this will come true and the faction inbalance will fix itself (and Carbino does not need to spend time and resources on solving this..) Only time will tell. I do however think it is a bad solution in terms of design. I see that many other posts here blame faction balance on faction limited races or faction image and propose making changes in those areas, I don't see this working for the long-term either. | |} ---- Well, the truth is that any attempts to "fix" the problem by the developers will end up back-firing in one way or another. Offering incentives (Increased XP, free goodies, free title, whatever) is not fair to the other side - and is EXTRA UNFAIR if the incentive is a tangible reward like a pet, mount, title or other visual sign. I mean, the more-populated side didn't do anything wrong, and rewarding the LESS POPULAR faction just reeks. Racial unlocks (Aurin for Dominion? Wut?) flies in the face of established Lore and is a stop-gap measure, at best. "Traitor" quests, same thing. The only thing that would accomplish is making sure the Exiles were filled with Chua, not that Aurin would go Dominion. NEW Races is always fun, but at this point, any new Exile race would almost have to be purposefully designed to be unpopular - and seriously, can you think of anything more wasteful than spending a years work animating an entire race that no one would want to play? Just saying, if the point of a new "cutesy Dominion race" is to attract people to that faction, wouldn't having an equally cool new Exile race be a "zero sum" game? That leaves, what? Just opening all the races to both factions? Not going to fix anything. I just don't see any equitable solution. It has to be left to the player base to solve, not the developers. | |} ---- ---- If it was just things like cross-faction PVE queues, then it wouldn't bother me a bit. But just tearing down the wall and saying "All Races are Now Open to Both Factions" ... just may as well forget that there is supposed to be a war going on at that point, since we'd all be one, big lovey-dovey family. Yuck. ;) | |} ---- The point of nuance isn't to excise anything bad from the Dominion. It's about providing some balance, showing that things aren't necessarily as clear-cut as they seem at first glance. The Dominion may like to throw their weight around, but they aren't doing so for malicious reasons. Like I said in my second post, the Dominion shouldn't see themselves as the bad guys. A Dominion player should be able see both that the Dominion sometimes goes too far and that their goals are deeper than just "bad guys are bad!" If you've ever read John Scalzi's Old Man War series, the Dominion should be like the Conclave: A massive, diverse group that goes to extreme lengths for self-preservation, but also one that is doing these things for what they believe is a means to an end in achieving peace. The Dominion might be a dictatorship, but it's not North Korea. They appear to take care of their citizens: the Draken were given Deradune to practice their religious beliefs, the Chua can experiment to their hearts content, Auroria shows the types of towns they're trying to provide, etc. Even among the caste system, the lowborn don't appear to be going without food, jobs, or homes. A Dominion player should be able to see what it is they're fighting for and why it's worth it, otherwise you're basically just playing an Exile a few steps removed from throwing on a pair of overalls. Ask yourself what the Dominion's ultimate goal is. The Dominion isn't trying to fight a never-ending war, but trying to create stability for their citizens, They aren't trying to take over Nexus just to annoy the Exiles, but because they see it as their holy land. They want peace, but they do it in a very extreme and controlling manner. But the Dominion see this as a means to the end in creating a stable society on what they see as their holy land - and that's where the nuance lies. So, my contention is that nuance already exists, it's just buried under mustache-twirling and dubious claims of greyness. It's something that could very easily be explored, providing Carbine actually started to practice what they preach. | |} ---- Draken are ugly 1 of the reasons I play Exiles | |} ---- All a matter of opinion, I love my Niliana. I think she's hot. :) | |} ---- To be frank i find Granok Males horrible with their oversize shoulders, its looks so bad i just keep them out of my screen :O The females however look great :) | |} ---- ...I think we're pretty firmly out of the realm of nuance and into the realm of apologetics at this point. It's pretty clearly the direction they're going, so I guess we're all in for it either way. I just don't see how they're going to do it with Mondo Zax rolling past all that nuance with his new Orbitron Deluxe With Aurin Crunchymuncher Attachment, yelling "Die! For SCIENCE!". | |} ---- Draken are ugly? What? AND YOU PLAY AN AURIN? IS THIS A JOKE? Seriously though, why am I not surprised that it's an aurin player saying that? Edited September 15, 2015 by Mental Surge | |} ---- Chua agree with Aurin, Draken is ugly, usually not smart too! Chua see many Draken fall of platform, refer to as natural selection! But on all seriousness, population is a major issue, and unless something is done, be it incentives or promotion, or whatever, Dominion is going to have a hard time. | |} ---- Meh, different people have different preferences, no? I don't like how Aurin look, she doesn't like how Draken look. Perfectly fine opinions to have. I'm sure the oil you spilled on said platform has nothing to do with that. Edited September 15, 2015 by Wylf | |} ---- Probably by implementing a more direct counterpart and calling it a day. I can see it now. Pappy will make a new character: an Aurin called "Domon Bloodoak" who will ride past nuance on a drakenbeast carrying two baskets filled with the disembodied heads of all Dominion races, including a still talking Mechari head attached to the head of the drakenbeast like a helmet, while yelling "Die! For NATURE!". Other totally nuanced story beats to look forward after drop 6: - Exiles implementing a quarantine on all Freebot-kind because of the technophage! - The granok bombarding a peaceful Grumpel planet because some Dominion freighters landed there! - The Exile humans declaring that Brightland actually ascended to godhood based on the fact that nobody has seen him outside of his cryo-pod! - Aurin uplifting veggies via use of the Weave, to the point that veggies quickly evolve into a race of psychotic killer vegetables who will devour everything and ruin the ecosystem of their home planet! The Exiles will accept them as allies because they'll be better than the Aurin at gardening. - The Exiles will adopt a 'Join us or die because we can't risk you joining the Dominion' policy, initiating an unnecessary war against the Lopp. 'Deadeye' will declare them a 'dangerous species of cute fluffy monsters who must be eradicated.' - Lieutenant Kara will be basically Toric's counterpart and the only remaining good person in the whole faction! Edited September 15, 2015 by Ildur | |} ---- ---- ---- I agree that we argue way too much about the lore and miss the other reasons because of it. | |} ---- The usual answer is to move the thread into the lore section once people have argued for a few pages about who would win in a mud wrestling fight between Agent Voxine and Durek Stonebreaker (Durek btw, he's got the mass). Many months ago I did get a dev to admit that the Dominion feels emptier a lot of the time because of Ilium's wide open layout. | |} ---- ---- I agree it is very delicate, that is why I believe any incentive needs to be balanced and carefully chosen. In my proposal mentioned earlier I was thinking of a 0.1% to 3.0% XP bonus for any characters below level 50. Scaling with how badly the faction is out of balance and re-evaluating every day. I don't think a percentage of extra XP gain will *cupcake* off the more populous faction, I know I for one would not care. Don't forget it is in everyone's best interest to have factions balanced in this type of game. (~PVP waiting queues/Equal guild recruitment pools/...) Agreed :) I could even go one step further and say the reasons and causes are irrelevant. It does not matter if it is the lore that caused the initial faction imbalance, what is important is how to best resolve it. (And hoping Carbino puts this on their huge to-do list after the next drop) Edited September 15, 2015 by Plexieglas | |} ---- ---- Nothing's been offered yet. I think they're waiting for free to play to determine what to do. Cause while I'm cozy enough in my guild, I would hate to see another case of Lightspire where we struggled to see new people logging on to play. | |} ---- ---- Hopefully it will stay that way. Even if it does work, what if the population shifts and Dominion is the popular one? How do you explain taking away a bonus that they've had for a long period of time just because their side is unbalanced because of factors players themselves can't control? | |} ---- Exactly why I said that *any* incentives is a bad thing. This has to be done organically or it just has to be accepted. No two ways about it. | |} ---- I don't think Exile's ever in danger of becoming unpopular what with bunny girls and all | |} ---- Making the Exiles overtly terroristic is flat out disgusting. That has some serious backfire potential. | |} ---- ---- ---- You're looking at things too narrowly. The Chua may not be nuanced themselves, but they provide nuance to the Dominion. So long as there's balance, nuance can contain bad just as easily as it can contain good. That's the whole point. Look at a character like Walter White on Breaking Bad. He does some horrific things, but you can't say he's not a nuanced character because of it. Also, I'm not apologizing or excusing the Dominion of anything. Their actions may be rash, overboard, and tyrannical, but they do have a goal that contains a kind of peace. It may not be your definition of peace, but if the Dominion's objective is to overtake the universe and be the supreme rulers, the result is - as they see it - is a peaceful universe due to having the proper order in place. As you can even see in the game, the Dominion is relatively peaceful among themselves, even though that is largely due to control, intimidation, and quashing of dissension. Again, that is nuance that exists within the game, but really is never highlighted. | |} ----